Abstract:

Diabetes is one of the most common diseases in the world, with growing numbers in both children and adolescents in several countries. Diabetes management imposes complex and strict routines on adolescents, posing an issue because they have a bigger resistance accepting these restrictions. Inefficiency of traditional resources for disseminating information on diabetes opens more opportunities for alternatives amongst adolescents and young adults.

Using serious games in healthcare is an example of how to encourage adhesion to treatment regimens and promote training routines that contribute to a health literacy increase and improvement of the person's quality of life.

This paper results from the development process of a serious game for adolescents and young adults to learn about type 1 diabetes through gamification. For that, four goals are proposed:
a) Map the existing works about serious games for diabetes;
b) Identify the main flaws in the used methodologies to create these games;
c) Develop an effective serious game prototype for in adolescents and young adults with type one diabetes;
d) Evaluate knowledge increase after playing the serious game.

The game development process was based on two steps: a bibliographic review of serious games about diabetes, followed by an analysis of participatory methodologies in game design. After this analysis, agame called "Glik '' was developed, an endless runner game that makes the player pick up carbohydrates and insulin to keep their blood glucose in range, while preventing hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia.

To test the game, a focus group of 15 people aged between 19 and 27 was recruited, using a methodology that followed three steps:
1. Application of a pre-game questionnaire on diabetes knowledge;
2. Testing the game with the focus group;
3. Application of a post-game questionnaire on usability and analysis of the evolution of knowledge about the disease.

The usability questionnaire evaluates "Glik" with an average score of 91.3 out of a 100 points, showing that the game is intuitive and has high usability. Analysing the rest of the obtained data shows a knowledge increase after playing, averaging from 8.34 people to 11.09 answering correctly after playing the game.

Keywords:

Game-based learning, serious games, diabetes, gamification.